How do you prevent food waste?

[MarianneR]

Hi, everyone! I've been lurking here for over a year, and finally decided it was time to show my face, so to speak.

I have a question for all of you. Yesterday, I was making apple butter with some apples that were a bit past their prime, and it got me to thinking. What are some of your favorite strategies/recipes/ideas for using up leftovers and foods that are on the verge of going bad?

Some of mine: bananas -- banana bread; apples -- applesauce, apple butter, apple bread; stale bread and rolls -- Italian breadcrumbs; leftover rice -- rice-crusted quiche; sprouted onions, rubbery celery & carrots -- chicken broth.

Having a waste-not, want-not kitchen is key to surviving in this economy, I think. I'd love to hear all of your ideas!

Marianne

[leezza]

Welcome aboard : ) glad to see that you came out of lurkdom : )

Anyway, what I have been doing lately is buying my produce at the little market every day or two.......that way I use it up. It is just a couple of blocks away so it is easy to catch when out doing other errands.

I am looking forward to reading what the others do also.

leezza

[jollyquilter]

I basically do not throw anything away. I have an old ice cream tub in the freezer and any small bits of leftovers go in the tub and when it has a good bit in it I make soup. I put all veggies, rice , pasta, even green onion tops ( chopped of coarse)

[Lady_V]

I toss everything in the food processor and make it in to a smooshy ball (sounds yummy huh? )

An egg, some breadcrumbs, a spice here, a spice there... tadah...UFO (unidentified food object) aka leftover loaf (think meatloaf) I obviously don't add soups etc....

If I am low on 'meaty' leftovers, I make 'stone soup'... add it all to the stockpot, like in the book.

[Michelle]

I do a lot of the ideas mentioned above, and I also have CORD once a week (clean out refrigerator day). We eat nothing but leftovers on those days. :yes:

[madhen]

This is something I am learning to be better at. I had a wake up call when I cleaned out my kitchen recently and saw how many expired cans were lurking in the shadows. Now, I have moved items that will expire in the next couple of months out to the front, and I try to use it. Same with fresh veggies: use it, freeze it, or dehydrate it!

[anna021]

The ideas from above are all good, I think my freezer helps a lot, if I can't use something and its been in the frig for a day or two I freeze it. Minestrone soup is a good way to use up veggies, pasta, and that 1/2 or 1 cup of this and that. Bread pudding uses up that stale bread, milk, cream and eggs that need to be used up. Also a casserole, that's made with pasta, and layered with veggies and left over cheese is a favorite at our house. I don't throw away much, much less since my kids are grown and out of the house. They (my kids) make me laugh when they rave over a meal of left-overs, things they'd never eat when they live home.

[macemesmum]

Ok great thread and welcome! I hate to throw anything away, so i do the following, banana = banana cake, apples = apple muffins, mushrooms getting soft I saute them up and freeze them for later use in casseroles etc, i freeze nearly all my milk so the other day 1 brought 2 1/2 gallon bottles for 80cents each reduced( one scanned wrong so i got it for free) meaning i got a gallon of milk for 80c not bad straight in the freezer as it had one day left on it, have never had milk go bad like this. I freeze the things left in my tin for instance i had half a tin of pineapple left after using the other half for pizza topping, last night i dragged it out and we stuck it on the bbq with dinner, WASTE NOT WANT NOT!! my nan used to say

[frugalchick]

I don't throw anything away......we either freeze it or eat it or use it up creatively. It's too expensive to waste.....I have a clean empty ice cream bucket in the freezer ready for soup fixings all the time. We are not picky, so we eat well.......

[knotme]

I make pizza using leftover spaghetti sauce. I use older apples in my split pea soup. the older the better. (here I also use my ham bone from bone-in ham) and the split pea soup doesn't taste the same with out the apple and I have to use fresh mint leaves in it. (doesn't taste the same without the mint) I also use my older carrolts in this soup.

Bananas I like to dehydrate for banana chips.

We also do a lot of soups like previously mentioned.

I use the water from cooking cauliflower and make the bear creek dehydrated potato soup out of that. I also slice any leftover cauliflower up in it. Usually there is very little left over for this.

I also peal the stems from fresh broccoli. the peals are very woody and dont' taste very good but the stems inside taste great. I either cook them or use in broccoli salad.

My kids like fruit smoothies so we freeze a lot of fresh fruit and use that in smoothies.

My MIL ussd to put all leftover cooked grains in homemade bread. ( like leftover cooked oatmeal etc. that was one way to get her one son to eat. To this day he is still very picky. (thank goodness he is not my DH)

When I have an abundance of tomatoes from the garden I make big batches of veggie beef soup and can it in the little 8 ounce (half pint size jars) then my DH takes a used peanut butter plastic lid and punches holes in it. He then takes these small soups to work for lunch. Just pop the lid off at work, add the peanut butter lid so it doesn't splatter in the microwave at work and he has a great homemade meal that cost pennies to make and is great tasting.


I also when rinsing out the old laundry bottles, use this for hand washing any clothes that need hand washing.

I also grind up the baggettes that we get free when they dry out faster than we can eat them and use these bread crumbs in casseroles or meat loaf. or use them for coating on oven fried chicken.

We also make a lot of "what needs to be used up" casseroles and soups.

[Gibs]

Excellent post. I have been learning since comming here to use up whatever left overs there are, and I am looking forward to keeping an eye on this thread so that I can get new ideas.

[rosey7415]

great thread!! i also hate waste and there is never any in this house.....lol anything leftover that isn't eaten the next day or two goes into the freezer. i try to be as creative as possible. soups, casseroles, individual homemade tv dinners with whatever is left. i really like the rice crusted quiche idea from marianneR. i'm going to try that for sure. usually i just made chicken/rice soup with leftover rice.

[Marie78]

I have been freezing things from cans when I didn't need all of it in a recipe. For example: Last week I made pumpkin chili and didn't need an entire can of pumpkin so I froze the leftovers in a recycled sour cream container and used a piece of masking tape to write how much pumpkin was in there and the date. I also did this with tomato sauce this week. Next time I need these ingredients in a recipe I will thaw them in the fridge and I will know how much is in each container for use in a new recipe. I do this with soup, chicken broth, pasta sauce, veggies, etc..

[forHISglory]

No waste here, and if there is.... shame on me! Thanks for starting this thread, Marianne!

I am big on hiding leftovers in soups and cassaroles. I also freeze items and dehydrate. But I have to be careful about losing those little bags of stuff in the freezer.

I use left over bits of cereal to make pancakes. Old fruit goes into the freezer and then into smoothies. Bits of veggies are great in omelets, as are bits of meat.

I also dehydrate citrus peels or make sugared peels to use in baking.

Mom used to freeze her abundance of eggs. Each egg was cracked into an ice cube maker and then popped out. All she had to do when baking was thaw the required number of eggs. We also froze extra milk, but the found that the fat content of the milk did make a difference in how it thawed out.

Old slices of bread can become french toast or go into bread pudding.

[lukesmama]

Great thread! I'm enjoying reading these.

Here are mine:
bananas = banana bread, or frozen in chunks to toss in smoothies
strawberries = freeze for smoothies
apples = apple pie (which I've found you can make with as little as one apple, it's all about the crust!)
red potatoes = potato cheese soup
leftover rice = stir fry
bread going stale = stick in fridge (to avoid mold) and use for grilled cheese ASAP